Tag Archives: online

Always remember: Don’tallow personal attacks AND don’t personalize remarks. This can be very challenging as everyone’s first response to “personalize” the situation. A key tool in any learning environment is successful and respectful interaction with learners (and the work / team environment too!!!). When communicating (verbally, in writing, or face to face) and corresponding with learners (colleagues) about “heated moments” It is prudent to ‘depersonalize’ the communication /correspondence by not using “you” and “I” but referencing the “issue” and the “course of action or resolution”.

For example if a student email states “You gave me a 69% on the last quiz and I don’t think it was fairly graded.” A response might look something like this: “Thank you for the email inquiry regarding performance on the LP 6 quiz. In review of the quiz, questions 4, 5 and 9 were not thoroughly / accurately addressed. Content focusing on the specific types of elder abuse; who are the most common perpetrators, and the four requirements for reporting elder abuse would have greatly improved performance on the quiz.”

It takes conscious thought and effort to develop this communication philosophy but take it from me ….. it most often does defuse the “heated moment” and directs attention to the issue at hand.

I recently read an interesting article that described an instructional technique used to improve online discussions. In the article, “Facilitating Online Discussions at a MANIC Pace: A New Strategy for an Old Problem”, authors Curry and Cook review research from past educators and identify pros and cons to online discussions. The authors reveal a new strategy, called MANIC, that can be used by educators to facilitate quality online discussions. Continue reading →